Fast start, sustained play key for Bolts

The Chargers as much as any team in recent years know how you finish is more important than how you start.

Will they go 10-6? 11-5? 12-4? Will they win eight games again?

The temptation is to say it doesn't matter, that January matters most.

But let's get real.

You might not remember the games played in September, but you don't want to have to count on December miracles all the time.

A bye and home game or two would be nice in January.

That said, a quick start and sustaining the level of play befitting a championship team will be paramount for the Chargers in 2009.

Plain and simple. Nothing less. Not any more.

The Chargers have proved — and still believe — that as long as you're playing your best football at the end of the season, a playoff run is possible. But no playoff run that ends before the hoisting of a Lombardi Trophy is enough at this point.

To that end, throughout the organization there is a belief they'll be better served come January if they can be more consistent throughout the previous four months.

It's all but a foregone conclusion that the Chargers will win their division — arguably the weakest and most bizarre in the NFL — and get into the postseason. But let us take just a little while to engage in the tricky and most-often futile exercise of breaking down the regular season.

Let's do that by paring it into thirds, not only because General Manager A.J. Smith likes to break a season into fourths when evaluating progress, and we want to be different than him, but because there
appear
to be some natural divisions in this schedule.

Tough start

The Chargers face what appears to be a big challenge to their impetus on beginning the season fast.

A road game at Oakland on Monday to open the season should be the easiest of the four games before their bye in Week 5. Three playoff teams from '08 (Baltimore and Miami at home and then a rematch of their divisional playoff game at Pittsburgh) follow, including the two AFC Championship Game combatants and Super Bowl winner.

A championship team probably comes out of this stretch at least 3-1.

But a 2-2 record wouldn't be the end of the word, considering what's after the bye.

Saved by the West

If there is reason to think the Chargers might not need to save themselves with another perfect December it is that they will have already played all six of their AFC West games by the end of November.

During their run of three division titles, the Chargers are 15-3 against the AFC West and 18-12 against everyone else.

(As an aside, to further the contention it's time this team parlays regular-season success into being the last team standing, the Chargers' 23 victories in their division since 2004 are tied for second behind New England's 24. Pittsburgh and Indianapolis also have 23. Those other three teams all have something in common in their trophy case.)